Marni Kotak
“Three Found Performances In & Out of Time”
Thursday September 4, 2025, 6-8pm
Performances start at 6:30pm
Installations on view Friday September 5, 12-6pm
Admission is free
Microscope Gallery and artist Marni Kotak invite you to the gallery on Thursday September 4 from 6-8pm for “Three Found Performances In and Out of Time,” an evening of “found” performances featuring new works and re-performances dating back up as many as 25 years.
The three works, which each run approximately 10-15 minutes, will be installed and performed in separate areas of the gallery between 6:30pm and 7:30pm.
The works on the program include the debut of Kotak’s new performance “Perimenopause” (2025, lived 2015-Present); “Sandbox” (2005, 2025, lived 1979-1982), which was first installed and performed at Artists Space for Performa 05’; and ”Gold Teeth” (2000, 2025), which will be the first live performance of her early photographic performance shot in the bathroom of her apartment and included in her internet-based project livesystems.net, which is also part of Rhizome’s ArtBase collection/archive.
Kotak’s “Found Performances” are works based on her daily activities, experiences, traumas, and accomplishments with the term “found” used in the sense of Duchamp’s readymades, as they are found from everyday life. These found performance have taken various shapes over the years including re-enactments, re-performances, and, since 2010, performances of the artist’s life as they are being lived in real time.
“…There are lots of things we do everyday: eat, drink, sleep, have sex, ride the subway, go to work, exercise, chant. Some of these things we do many times in one day. Most of us think there is Nothing Special about doing everyday things. I think we all need to think about everyday things more and put our whole hearts into doing them in a way which is deeply fulfilling to us” – MK
The installations will also remain on view during gallery hours Friday September 5, 12-6pm.
Additional information about each individual performance follows below.
Sandbox (2005, 2025, lived 1979 -1982) — 10-15 minutes
When I was about 5 years old, and living in a small red house in East Walpole, my father built an amazing outside play area for my sister and I. The fenced in space was about 20’ X 30’ and contained a wonderful wooden sandbox, of which the one in this show is a replica. In Sandbox, I play in my sandbox, building a heart-shaped sandcastle around myself, while the sounds of me singing “You are my sunshine…” and chanting “Miss Marni. Miss Marni. Miss Marni…” increase in intensity in the background, representing the thoughts running through my head while I played — MK
Perimenopause (2025, lived 2015 – Present) — approximately 15 minutes
For this Found Performance, I begin by lying on a bed, tossing and turning, next to small nightstand with drawers that have a lamp, a clock, a hair brush, a jar that reads “All the Hair I Lost During Perimenopause”, and a medical display of how the Mirena works (an IUD used to prevent pregnancy as well as to treat heavy menstrual activity). Also in the space, is a full-length mirror with a scale in front of it. I am lying in the bed wearing nothing but period-stained underwear. I wake up at 4am, pillow wet from night sweat, can’t go back to sleep. And the nocturnal activities continue. — MK
Gold Teeth (2000, 2025) — approximately 15 minutes
A re-performance of a 2000 photographic performance I did in the bathroom of my Williamsburg apartment at the time. It involves me brushing my teeth, and painting them and my face gold. The work is part of the Livesystems project, which was conceived as my life as a business online, utilizing methods of mass media to present a new economy driven by my desires and those of my community. … — MK
This early use of the color gold as a symbol of value for things usually overlooked and unappreciated or taken for granted has become a constant in Kotak’s work over the years and continues today.
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Marni Kotak is a multimedia and performance artist presenting everyday life being lived. She has received international attention for her durational performances and exhibitions, most notably “The Birth of Baby X” (2011) in which she gave birth to her son as a live performance and “Mad Meds” (2014) during which the artist slowly withdrew from psychiatric medications prescribed for postpartum depression. In “Treehouse” (2017), Kotak — who had just experienced a devastating fire in her home — created a refuge for herself and others to pause from the overwhelming aspects of life and in “Dancing in the Oval Office” (2019) she danced with the public to songs of their choices within an idealized recreation of the White House Oval Office. And most recently,“Seriously Kidding Around” (2022) marked 10 years of the artist’s “Raising Baby X” project and collaboration with her child, with the pair living their daytime home routine in versions of their Brooklyn apartment and art studios installed within the gallery.
Kotak’s works have also appeared at the Santiago Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile; Artists Space, New York, NY; Exit Art, New York, NY; White Box, New York, NY Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY; English Kills Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn, NY; among others. She has performed extensively in the US and abroad.
Her exhibitions have been featured in Artforum, Art Pulse, The Huffington Post, Hyperallergic, Los Angeles Times, Studio International, The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Time Magazine, Washington Post, among many others. Kotak’s work also appear in books and publications including “The Maternal, Digital Subjectivity, and the Aesthetics of Interruption,” Bloomsbury (2022); Maternal Performance: Feminist Relations, Palgrave McMillian (2021); The Art of Feminisim: Images that shaped the Fight for Equality, 1957-2017, Chronicle Books (2018); and Blackwells Companions to Contemporary Art: A Companion to Feminist Art, John Wiley & Sons (2019), among others. Kotak has appeared on Good Morning America (ABC), CBC Radio, NPR, ZDFKultur, and other broadcasts as well as in the documentary “The Art of Making it,” (2021) currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Marni Kotak received a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Brooklyn College.
